Tips To Help Lift Grilling Smokescreen

May 23, 1985|By Barbara Sullivan.

It`s a ritual.

The sun dips in the west. The meat or chicken or fish is waiting in the kitchen. The charcoal is carefully poured into the firebox of the grill, probably in a pyramid. The starter is squirted on. A pause, a wait while the fluid soaks into the charcoal. Then the match is lit and, whoosh.

All over the suburbs, up and down the city streets, rises the collective smoke of outdoor cookery. What`s better than standing at the grill, cooking in the great outdoors?

But wait. Should you use a covered grill or an uncovered one? Charcoal briquets or a lump charcoal such as mesquite? Do you start it with that liquid starter or with an electric starter?

Even the seemingly simplest of rituals can be complicated with options. If you`re slightly bemused or confused, here are a few tips and how-tos to ease the way from kitchen to outdoors. Most of this advice comes from the new ``The Grilling Book`` (Aris Books, $10.95) by A. Cort Sinnes and Jay Harlow.

-- Uncovered grills, so popular in the 1960s, are often considered best for quick-cooking foods, such as steaks, hamburgers and fish. The advantage is the adjustability of most uncovered grills; you can cook virtually right over the coals, quickly searing the sides of a steak, and then jack the grill higher up. The disadvantages, of course, are the flareups when fat drips down onto the fire and the limitations of what can be cooked on the grill. For camping trips, however, nothing beats a little hibachi. (Unless it`s the covered Smokey Joe.)

Covered grills have become the barbecue standard in the last 15 years, and kettle devotees are legion. The distance between grill and coals cannot be changed on most models, but heat can be regulated by adjusting the amount of oxygen reaching the coals, through the air vents on the bottom of the grill and on the top. Foods such as hams, turkeys and pork shoulders, which require long cooking times, are delicious cooked in a covered grill. Flareups from fat dripping off chicken, ribs and steaks are eliminated with the cover.

Although the principle of the covered grill is to cook with the cover on, many outdoor cookers like to sear a steak or hamburger, or even slightly blacken the skin of a chicken, with the cover off and complete the cooking with the cover back on.

-- Most charcoal briquets are composed of charcoal, a binder and some chemical ingredients. They are inexpensive to produce, can be stored easily because of their uniform, compact size, and are easy to ignite. Natural lump charcoal is from pure wood; mesquite is perhaps the best known. Any kind of charcoal flavors the food, and many insist that pure wood is the healthy, chemical-free way of cooking.

-- Whichever charcoal is used, it`s usually piled in a pyramid for igniting. The amount used is obviously dependent on the amount to be cooked;

two hamburgers require far less charcoal than ribs and chicken for 10 hungry people. The commonest method of the ritual is to squirt lighter fluid on the charcoal, apply the match and step back. However, many grillers are opting for other methods of fire starting, again citing the chemical effect of the fluid on the coals, and, ultimately, on the food.

Electrical starters always work and are a more natural way to get things going. Likewise, chimneys are now on the market. Wadded newspaper can be placed at the bottom of the chimney and covered with charcoal. Ignite the paper, and the chimney`s draft should do the rest. For do-it-yourselfers, a coffee can serves just as well. Just remove the top and bottom and punch holes around the bottom with a bottle opener.

-- It usually takes about a half hour for the fire to be ready. A moderate fire, which is right for most foods, is when the coals are slightly covered with gray ash.

-- Once the coals are ready, spread them out evenly. In a covered grill, food does not have to be cooked directly over the coals; directions that come with several models recommend that the food not be positioned over the direct heat. For cooking large pieces of meat, coals can be placed on either side of the firebox, and the meat placed in the center of the grill.